Dr. Paul Atchley has been conducting research and teaching about cognitive factors related to driving for over 20 years. He is currently on faculty at the University of Kansas. Dr. Atchley received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Riverside in 1996 and completed postdoctoral training at the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois in 1998.
Dr. Atchley has published numerous peer-reviewed articles and chapters on issues of vision and attention including their relationship to driving. He has also received awards for his research, teaching and student advising.
Dr. Atchley’s work has been highlighted by national and international press such as the BBC, NPR, Rock Center with Brian Williams, “Katie” with Katie Couric, and the New York Times. He is part of efforts at the state and national level to reduce distracted driving.
Dr. Atchley also works with groups including the National Safety Council, LifeSavers, FocusDriven and the Distraction Advocate Network to provide clear, compelling and consistently well-received talks about the science of distracted driving.


Effective June 6, 2019, a new law requires the West Virginia Board of Physical Therapy and other licensing authorities to waive all initial licensing fees for low-income individuals and military families. This waiver only applies to the PT/PTA/AT license fees, application fee, and exam processing fee, per Title 16 Legislative Rule Series 4 and 6.
This waiver does not apply to those seeking a temporary permit from the Board or to any other fees.
A “low-income individual” is defined as an individual who resides in the local labor market (every county in West Virginia, and any county outside of West Virginia if any portion of that county is within fifty miles of the border of West Virginia) whose household adjusted gross income is below 130% of the poverty line. This is pursuant to the most recent annual poverty guidelines released by the United States Department of Health and Human Services. To access the federal poverty guidelines, visit https://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty-guidelines. From the “Resources” area, click on “A chart with percentages (e.g. 125 percent) of the guidelines” and review the column marked “130%.”
The term “low-income individual” also includes any person enrolled in a state or federal public assistance program including, but not limited to, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program (TANF), Medicaid, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
A “military family” is defined in the law as any person who serves as an active member of the armed forces of the United States, the National Guard, or a reserve component, honorably discharged veterans of those forces, and their spouses. This term also includes surviving spouses of deceased service members who have not remarried.
Application Process
Individuals seeking a waiver of initial licensing fees, as either a low-income individual or military family, must submit the applicable initial licensing fee waiver application and all required documentation to the Board. Original signatures are required; therefore, applications are not accepted via fax or email. The Board will process the waiver request and provide written notification of eligibility to the applicant, via email, within 30 days of receipt of an accurately completed licensing fee waiver application. The 30-day processing period does not commence until all required documentation and information has been received by the Board.
An applicant who is approved for an initial licensing fee waiver must apply for initial licensure within 60 days of receiving written notification from the Board. If the initial licensure application is not received within 60 days, the waiver will expire. Applicants are only eligible to receive one initial licensing fee waiver from the Board.
Approval of an initial licensing fee waiver does NOT entitle the individual to receive a West Virginia license. An individual granted an initial licensing fee waiver must still apply for licensure and meet the qualifications and criteria for licensure as set forth in West Virginia Code and Legislative Rule.


The U.S. FDA announced that it has cleared a new set of tubes used in hemodialysis machines made by Fresenius Medical Care AG & Co., of Bad Homburg, Germany, that are expected to overcome concerns about the previous tubes’ release of potentially toxic biphenyls. The agency acknowledged that it has no reports of adverse events related to the use of these chemicals in the silicone used to manufacture the tubes, stating that its action on this issue is driven solely by animal studies in the medical literature, none of which were cited in the FDA’s Oct. 28 announcement.


CLASP News: What We're Working on Now
21 results found
Lighting
PRESS RELEASE: Off-Grid Solar Products Deliver High Satisfaction for Kenyan Consumers
CLASP, which leads the VeraSol quality assurance initiative, commissioned a study to evaluate consumers’ experiences with off-grid solar products in Kenya. This study was the first of its kind and sought to complement existing data gathered through laboratory testing by focusing on how consumers interact with quality-verified and non-quality verified products.
Electronics
Nigeria Off-Grid Appliance Market
In continuation of the Efficiency for Access country profile series, this report sheds light on the off- and weak-grid appliance market in Nigeria.
Cooking
Developing a Test Method for Underserved Electric Pressure Cooker Markets
In 2020, the Global LEAP Awards launched the inaugural Electric Pressure Cooker (EPC) Competition. Through the Electric Cooking Impact Series, we share insights into the role of EPCs in enhancing community resiliency to global shocks like the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cooling
Celebrating World Standards Day 2020
World Standards Day 2020 is themed “Protecting the Planet with Standards.” In celebration of World Standards Day, CLASP is highlighting several best-in-class, new and innovative standards for energy-consuming appliances and equipment around the world.
Sierra Leone’s Off-Grid Appliance Market, While Nascent, Shows Promising Potential
In an effort to improve national electrification rates, the Government of Sierra Leone has adopted several policies to prioritize and promote decentralized solar energy solutions. Despite these efforts, the prevalence of solar home systems and off-grid appliances remains low.
Efficiency for Access Shares Market Insights on India’s Off-Grid and Weak-Grid Solar Appliance Market We have always found that the technical contributions and policy recommendations from CLASP strongly complement our own advocacy efforts, collectively enabling us to deliver a compelling message to the Commission in support of ambitious regulations. Laura Degallaix Secretary General, European Environmental Citizens Organisation for Standardisation
CLASP Provides Technical Support on Off-Grid Solar Quality Assurance Across Sub-Saharan Africa Under VeraSol
Agricultural Equipment
Developing Test Methods for Solar Water Pumps
CLASP’s decision to develop a comprehensive test method for solar water pumps was informed by a mounting recognition of the technology’s impact potential and demand potential.
Renewable Energy Systems
Meet Elisa Lai, Senior Associate, Market Development & Innovation Team
In celebration of CLASP's 20th anniversary, each month we profile one of our team members. This month, we sat down with Elisa Lai, a Senior Associate on the Market Development & Innovation team.
Renewable Energy Systems
New Research from Efficiency for Access & Partners for the Off-Grid Solar Sector
Efficiency for Access and our partners are excited to share a new suite of research to empower clean energy access stakeholders with consumer, technical, and market intelligence.


One of the more prominent automobile safety recalls in the last decade is the recall of airbags manufactured by the now-defunct Takata Corporation. This problem came to light in 2013 and has since involved nearly 70 million faulty products worldwide, with 42 million of those in the U.S. The original recall (2013-present) stemmed from Takata airbags having long-term exposure to extreme heat and humidity. This resulted in some Takata airbags exploding when deployed in an accident. In 2014, it was estimated that Takata held as much as 20 percent of the market.
Takata NADI airbag recall (Late 2019-Present)
Much more recently, a narrower scope of Takata airbags was recalled due to a potential faulty seal on the inflator; the inflator in question is officially referred to as a non-azide driver inflator (NADI). This flaw either causes insufficient inflation in the event of an accident or an explosion similar to the prior defect discovered in Takata airbags. This particular recall affected brands such as Toyota, BMW, Audi, Honda, Mitsubishi, and Isuzu, with Honda owners being especially at risk.
What You Can Do
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) website has comprehensive information on whether or not your vehicle is under the recall for Takata airbags. You can check your vehicle identification number (VIN) to see if it is affected. Federal law mandates that remedies for these types of defects must be fixed free of charge at dealerships. Additionally, you need to check whether or not your vehicle applies to the “stop-driving immediately” designation under the Takata airbag recall.
If your local dealership does not agree to fix your defect, you may first file a complaint with the NHTSA. You should also heavily consider filing a product liability suit or joining an existing class-action lawsuit if you or someone close to you has been injured by a faulty Takata airbag. Licensed auto dealers are forbidden from selling unrepaired vehicles that fall under the Takata airbag recall, but unlicensed dealers are a different story; you may be entitled to damages if you can show the dealer knowingly sold you a vehicle under recall.
What Do I Do If I Cannot?
If you have been sold a vehicle with a safety recall such as a Takata airbag that was not disclosed to you before you purchased the car, contact the dealer immediately to see if they will repurchase the car or replace it with one that does not have a safety recall. If you can avoid it, please do not continue to drive a vehicle if you know it is unsafe to drive. If you are unsure if your vehicle is safe to drive or not, please have the car towed to a mechanic that can perform a safety inspection. You generally have a better chance of succeeding in your product defect claim if you retain the services of an experienced consumer lawyer. Our law firm has experience in taking on such matters and would be happy to discuss your potential case if a dealer has refused to do the right thing and correct the defect.


Abstract
Diabetic retinopathy, a common and sight-threatening microvascular complication of diabetes mellitus, is a leading cause of blindness among working-aged adults. Medical therapies including intensive control of hyperglycemia and hypertension have been shown to reduce the incidence and progression of diabetic retinopathy. The association of dyslipidemia and treatment with statins with diabetic retinopathy is inconsistent in epidemiologic studies. However, two recent randomized clinical trials have demonstrated beneficial effects of systemic fenofibrate therapy in reducing the progression of diabetic retinopathy independently of serum lipid levels. These findings suggest that fenofibrate may be an effective strategy for reducing the progression of diabetic retinopathy, thus reducing the large and growing public health burden of treating the sight-threatening complications of diabetic retinopathy.


Capsule endoscopy is a major tool for the evaluation of patients with obscure gastrointestinal bleeding. Although this endoscopic modality provides a significant progress in the evaluation of the small bowel, its reading remains an exhaustive process which is error-prone. Our group developed a deep learning model able to detect and differentiate small bowel lesions and automatically classify them according their bleeding potential using a validated score (Saurin’s scale). This tool provides accurate differentiation of lesions according ten distinct categories (normal mucosa, lymphangiectasia, xanthomas, blood and protruding lesions, vascular lesions, and ulcers or erosions with uncertain or high bleeding potential. Overall, our model reached an accuracy of 99%, with a sensitivity of 88% and a specificity of 99%. This work was published as an original article in
BMJ Open Gastroenterology.
This is the first artificial intelligence algorithm to simultaneous provide detection and differentiation of the most significant types of small bowel lesions, also classifying the findings according to their bleeding potential.
The article can be found here.
In Press // September 2021


The banking industry has always been ahead of the curve in terms of the implementation of technology, and there is no surprise that IoT is gaining momentum in the financial sector. The use of IoT devices is helping banks to improve user experience, increase client engagement, and overall make the banking process more convenient and accessible. Digital transformation using location-based marketing tools and techniques allows banks to understand individual customer needs and deliver highly personalized banking solutions on and offline. Additionally, data from social media and purchasing habits can indicate individual credit risks.
To double down, every financial institution considers security their number one priority. A study by PwC Global Economic Crime and Fraud survey stated that 49% of companies encountered fraud activities in various ways in 2020. IoT applications can significantly bolster security features to detect and prevent fraud before it occurs.
But what about the move from traditional banking? Mobile apps and wearable devices such as Apple watches are now becoming a norm in everyday society. Users can now see in real-time their spending logs, create expense patterns, and be notified of any fraudulent activity.
Financial institutions have no choice but to become more efficient and user-friendly. FinTech with the adoption of IoT within its ecosystem has had a significant positive impact on client management, ease of transactions, and business automation. Having the ability to monitor and analyze data is crucial in producing insights that can help make better decisions and provide efficient customer service.


Ferguson, Freya and Sandy McLennan, Prof and Urbaniak, Mick and Nigel Jones, Dr and Copeland, Nikki (2020)
Re-evaluation of Diadenosine Tetraphosphate (Ap4A) From a Stress Metabolite to Bona Fide Secondary Messenger. Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences, 7. Abstract
Cellular homeostasis requires adaption to environmental stress. In response to various environmental and genotoxic stresses, all cells produce dinucleoside polyphosphates (NpnNs), the best studied of which is diadenosine tetraphosphate (Ap4A). Despite intensive investigation, the precise biological roles of these molecules have remained elusive. However, recent studies have elucidated distinct and specific signaling mechanisms for these nucleotides in prokaryotes and eukaryotes. This review summarizes these key discoveries and describes the mechanisms of Ap4A and Ap4N synthesis, the mediators of the cellular responses to increased intracellular levels of these molecules and the hydrolytic mechanisms required to maintain low levels in the absence of stress. The intracellular responses to dinucleotide accumulation are evaluated in the context of the “friend” and “foe” scenarios. The “friend (or alarmone) hypothesis” suggests that ApnN act as bona fide secondary messengers mediating responses to stress. In contrast, the “foe” hypothesis proposes that ApnN and other NpnN are produced by non-canonical enzymatic synthesis as a result of physiological and environmental stress in critically damaged cells but do not actively regulate mitigating signaling pathways. In addition, we will discuss potential target proteins, and critically assess new evidence supporting roles for ApnN in the regulation of gene expression, immune responses, DNA replication and DNA repair. The recent advances in the field have generated great interest as they have for the first time revealed some of the molecular mechanisms that mediate cellular responses to ApnN. Finally, areas for future research are discussed with possible but unproven roles for intracellular ApnN to encourage further research into the signaling networks that are regulated by these nucleotides.


Presented By: Julie Caspar
Human Resources is integral in increasing the value of people capital within an organization. Pivotal in achieving this goal is hiring right the first time around. 7 Steps to Increasing Your Hiring Success Ratio shows the advantages of approaching recruitment in a PR context, presents competencies as critical success factors, and demonstrates the necessity for all parties involved with selection to recruit for the same things, using specific tools and practices to increase the probability of hiring success. Also highlighted is the critical nature of HR from beginning to end, making a significant impact on the organization’s hiring success ratio.
Learning objectives for this session include:
Presenting 7 Steps Charting a recruiting plan / strategy Developing a critical success factor outline Providing an interview and evaluation guide for selection team Reviewing HR’s role per step
Julie Caspar M.S. is President, HR Hotline Associates specializing in Compensation, Staffing, Performance Consulting and Leadership. Julie taught at Drake University in the Leadership Development program for 10 ½ years, has held board roles on Central Iowa SHRM, plus has volunteered HR expertise in board advisory capacities. Julie has facilitated numerous seminars, presented at conferences on various topics, has been published in the Des Moines Register, was featured in, Let’s T.A.L.K.: Handling the Difficult Performance Appraisal training video, and has recently authored & self-published her second book, 7 Steps to Increasing Your Hiring Success Ratio, slated for release, Fall 2016.


The private credit market in Asia is taking off. Despite the challenges of 2020, the global private credit market is set to grow to US$1 trillion. As the asset class continues to develop in Asia, it will play a crucial role in the region’s economic rebound from COVID-19, and there continues to be significant appetite from global and regional managers who have ramped up fundraising across a range of private credit strategies as they look for portfolio diversification and stability in this time of crisis.
Against such a backdrop, private credit managers and LPs alike will have to navigate the unique challenges of investing in a diverse and fragmented region.
Through this one-day virtual experience, AVCJ hopes to provide a setting to tell the compelling growth story of the global private credit market, as well as to foster an educational platform for global and regional investors to share key trends, best practices, and help capture opportunities in this asset class
Visit our website at www.avcjforum.com/private-credit-forum for more details.
*Subject to verification and approval. Maximum to two passes per institution


Denoising diffusion models (DDMs) have shown promising results in 3D point cloud synthesis. To advance 3D DDMs and make them useful for digital artists, we require
(i) high generation quality, (ii) flexibility for manipulation and applications such as conditional synthesis and shape interpolation, and (iii) the ability to output smooth surfaces or meshes. To this end, we introduce the hierarchical Latent Point Diffusion Model (LION) for 3D shape generation. LION is set up as a variational autoencoder (VAE) with a hierarchical latent space that combines a global shape latent representation with a point-structured latent space. For generation, we train two hierarchical DDMs in these latent spaces. The hierarchical VAE approach boosts performance compared to DDMs that operate on point clouds directly, while the point-structured latents are still ideally suited for DDM-based modeling. Experimentally, LION achieves state-of-the-art generation performance on multiple ShapeNet benchmarks. Furthermore, our VAE framework allows us to easily use LION for different relevant tasks: LION excels at multimodal shape denoising and voxel-conditioned synthesis, and it can be adapted for text- and image-driven 3D generation. We also demonstrate shape autoencoding and latent shape interpolation, and we augment LION with modern surface reconstruction techniques to generate smooth 3D meshes. We hope that LION provides a powerful tool for artists working with 3D shapes due to its high-quality generation, flexibility, and surface reconstruction.
We introduce the Latent Point Diffusion Model (LION), a DDM for 3D shape generation. LION focuses on learning a 3D generative model directly from geometry data without image-based training. Similar to previous 3D DDMs in this setting, LION operates on point clouds. However, it is constructed as a VAE with DDMs in latent space. LION comprises a hierarchical latent space with a vector-valued global shape latent and another point-structured latent space. The latent representations are predicted with point cloud processing encoders, and two latent DDMs are trained in these latent spaces. Synthesis in LION proceeds by drawing novel latent samples from the hierarchical latent DDMs and decoding back to the original point cloud space. Importantly, we also demonstrate how to augment LION with modern surface reconstruction methods to synthesize smooth shapes as desired by artists. LION has multiple advantages:
Expressivity: By mapping point clouds into regularized latent spaces, the DDMs in latent space are effectively tasked with learning a smoothed distribution. This is easier than training on potentially complex point clouds directly, thereby improving expressivity. However, point clouds are, in principle, an ideal representation for DDMs. Because of that, we use latent points, this is, we keep a point cloud structure for our main latent representation. Augmenting the model with an additional global shape latent variable in a hierarchical manner further boosts expressivity. Varying Output Types: Extending LION with Shape As Points (SAP) geometry reconstruction allows us to also output smooth meshes. Fine-tuning SAP on data generated by LION's autoencoder reduces synthesis noise and enables us to generate high-quality geometry. LION combines (latent) point cloud-based modeling, ideal for DDMs, with surface reconstruction, desired by artists. Flexibility: Since LION is set up as a VAE, it can be easily adapted for different tasks without retraining the latent DDMs: We can efficiently fine-tune LION's encoders on voxelized or noisy inputs, which a user can provide for guidance. This enables multimodal voxel-guided synthesis and shape denoising. We also leverage LION's latent spaces for shape interpolation and autoencoding. Optionally training the DDMs conditioned on CLIP embeddings enables image- and text-driven 3D generation.
Below we show samples from a LION model that was trained on shapes from multiple ShapeNet catgories,
The hierarchical VAE architecture of LION is crucial for scalability and capturing diverse shape data. It allows the model to learn a multimodal distribution over different categories without the need for class-conditioning. We find that the shape latent variables capture global shape, while the latent points model details. We validate this by fixing the shape variable to different values and only sampling different latent points.
Below we show samples from a LION model that was trained on all 55 ShapeNet categories
LION can interpolate shapes by traversing the latent space (interpolation is performed in the latent diffusion models' prior space, using the
Probability Flow ODE for deterministic DDM-generation). The generated shapes are clean and semantically plausible along the entire interpolation path.
LION's sampling time can be reduced by using fast DDM sampler, such as the DDIM sampler. DDIM sampling with 25 steps can already generate high-quality shapes, which takes less than 1 second. This enables real-time and interactive applications.
LION can synthesize different variations of a given shape, enabling multimodal generation in a controlled manner. This is achieved through a diffuse-denoise procedure, where shapes are diffused for only a few steps in the latent DDMs and then denoised again.
Given a coarse voxel grid, LION can generate different plausible detailed shapes. In practice, an artist using a 3D generative model may have a rough idea of the desired shape. For instance, they may be able to quickly construct a coarse voxelized shape, to which the generative model then adds realistic details. We achieve this by fine-tuning our encoder networks on voxelized shapes, and performing a few steps of diffuse-denoise in latent space to generate various plausible detailed shapes.
We qualitatively demonstrate how LION can be extended to also allow for single view reconstruction (SVR) from RGB data, using the approach from
CLIP-Forge. We render 2D images from the 3D ShapeNet shapes, extract the images' CLIP image embeddings, and train LION's latent diffusion models while conditioning on the shapes' CLIP image embeddings. At test time, we then take a single view 2D image, extract the CLIP image embedding, and generate corresponding 3D shapes, thereby effectively performing SVR. We show SVR results from real RGB data.
Using CLIP's text encoder, our method additionally allows for text-guided generation.
We apply
Text2Mesh on some generated meshes from LION to additionally synthesize textures in a text-driven manner, leveraging CLIP. The original input meshes are generated by LION. This is only possible because LION can output practically useful meshes with its SAP-based surface reconstruction component (even though the backbone generative modeling component is point cloud-based).
@inproceedings{zeng2022lion, title={LION: Latent Point Diffusion Models for 3D Shape Generation}, author={Xiaohui Zeng and Arash Vahdat and Francis Williams and Zan Gojcic and Or Litany and Sanja Fidler and Karsten Kreis}, booktitle={Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS)}, year={2022}}


Abstract
In a previous study, we found that glutamine-enriched enteral nutrition in 102 very low-birth-weight (VLBW) infants decreased both the incidence of serious neonatal infections and atopic dermatitis during the first year of life. The aims of this follow-up study were to determine whether these beneficial effects are attended by changes in Th


Dill is widely known as a medicinal herb.
It supports digestion and promises relief from flatulence and bloating, as well as diarrhea.
Pregnant women are advised to regularly enjoy dill seeds soaked in water to support lactation.
We recommend growing dill as a microgreen or enjoying it spouted as a tea. Growing dill sprouts in jars does not work well.
Ingredients: mainly calcium, potassium, sodium.


It is better to avoid non-prescribed additions to the protocol, including dietary supplements. The clinical studies did not include additional ingredients, and we are still learning what effect these additions may have on the protocol. For prescribed medications and dietary supplements, we recommend consulting with your physician or healthcare provider.


Language and cultural barriers, and a disadvantaged socio-economic situation of families and communities often contribute to the risk of youth inactivity and social exclusion. Migration often implies an interruption of studies in the country of origin to resume them in a foreign country, often in a different language. This is a challenging transition and may negatively impact educational achievement and professional development, increasing the chances of inactivity. Additionally, young people with an immigration background are 70% more likely to become NEETs compared to other young people.


Abstract: This study examines the complexity of citizens’ political affectivity in Turkey. Drawing from componential models of affect, we rely on situational (motive consistent versus inconsistent) and motivational state (gain or loss) appraisals to test hypotheses on systematic differences in the clusters of political affect that span beyond the traditionally measured discrete emotional reactions of anger, hope, pride and fear. Using qualitative interview data from 2012, we develop a topography of affect clusters and systems of associations between political concepts. We find citizens express their emotionality in rich terms. They are linked to appraisals of multiple political objects, they reflect aversive, anxious, loss and gain oriented emotional responses, and they are guided by citizens’ ideological orientations. This study is valuable as it addresses a significant gap in the study of political affect going beyond their discrete categorizations. It introduces a mapping methodology as an effective way of capturing the complexity of affect systems, and it reveals powerful insights into the depth and richness of emotions based on appraisal dimensions, enriching our understanding of political tensions and developments in Turkish politics and beyond.


Comparing the dietary niche overlap and ecomorphological differences between invasive Hemidactylus mabouia geckos and a native gecko competitor
Abstract
Hemidactylus mabouia is one of the most successful, widespread invasive reptile species and has become ubiquitous across tropical urban settings in the Western Hemisphere. Its ability to thrive in close proximity to humans has been linked to the rapid disap-pearance of native geckos. However, aspects of Hemidactylus mabouia natural history and ecomorphology, often assumed to be linked with this effect on native popula-tions, remain understudied or untested. Here, we combine data from ∂15N and ∂13C stable isotopes, stomach contents, and morphometric analyses of traits associated with feeding and locomotion to test alternate hypotheses of displacement between H. mabouia and a native gecko, Phyllodactylus martini, on the island of Curaçao. We demonstrate substantial overlap of invertebrate prey resources between the species, with H. mabouia stomachs containing larger arthropod prey as well as vertebrate prey. We additionally show that H. mabouia possesses several morphological advantages, including larger sizes in feeding-associated traits and limb proportions that could offer a propulsive locomotor advantage on vertical surfaces. Together, these findings pro-vide the first support for the hypotheses that invasive H. mabouia and native P. martinioverlap in prey resources and that H. mabouia possess ecomorphological advantages over P. martini. This work provides critical context for follow-up studies of H. mabouiaand P. martini natural history and direct behavioral experiments that may ultimately il-luminate the mechanisms underlying displacement on this island and act as a potential model for other systems with Hemidactylus mabouia invasions.
KEYWORDSfood web, invasive species, trophic ecology, urbanization, vertebrate biodiversity loss


What is a BOBL Futures Contract?
A BOBL futures contract is a standardized futures contract based on a basket of medium-term debt issued by the German Federal Government.
BOBL is an acronym for a German term, Bundesobligation, which translated to English is federal government bond.
Understanding the BOBL Futures Contract
BOBL futures contracts trade under the symbol FGBM on the Eurex Exchange, an international exchange based near Frankfurt.
The underlying assets are medium-term bonds with maturities of 4.5 to 5.5 years and a coupon rate currently at 6%. The contract has a notional contract value of 100,000 euros with a minimum pricing unit of €1 and a minimum tick value of €5. Unlike most other types of future contracts, BOBL contracts tend to be settled by delivery.
The Eurex Exchange deals primarily in European-based derivatives. It is the largest European futures and options market. Prices are quoted in 0.01 percent of par value and contracts mature quarterly in March, June, September, and December.
In the U.S., these futures contracts trade on the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) under the symbol G05.
The iShares Germany Govt Bond UCITS ETF (SDEU) is an exchange-traded fund (ETF) based on German notes and bonds.
Key Takeaways A BOBL futures contract is a standardized futures contract based on medium-term bonds issued by the German government. German bonds are among the most heavily traded fixed-income securities in the world. Comparisons between yields for German bonds and those of other governments, including the U.S., are often used to evaluate relative economic performance. The German Fixed Income Market
As in the U.S. market, fixed income futures based on German government debt instruments are traded actively for short-, medium-, and long-term maturities.
The BOBL is the medium-term maturity, but there also is active trading for Bund futures. These are the long-term bond equivalent to the U.S. Treasury bond, with original maturities between 10 and 30 years.
Schatz futures are short-term maturity bonds, having an underlying basket of short-term German debt with maturities ranging from 21 to 27 months. Schatz is also known as the short bund futures contract.
BOBL futures, along with the Bund and Schatz, are among the most heavily traded fixed-income securities in the world.
The BOBL is based on the medium-term security. The Bund is the long-term security and the Schatz is the short-term security.
Interest rates in Germany are closely watched. Spreads between similar maturities in Germany, the rest of Europe, and the U.S. are often compared to analyze relative global economic conditions, flows of capital, and government economic policies.
The benchmark 10-year yields and two-year yields are often used to compare conditions between countries.
In the years following the 2008 financial crisis, central banks around the world embarked on a coordinated campaign to increase liquidity in order to resuscitate economic growth. This campaign resulted in many government interest rates, including some in Germany, falling below zero. During this period, German interest rates fell below zero for bond maturities as long as seven years.


The New York Times's Stephen Labaton (with contributions by Ron Nixon) reports that, under the Bush Administration, OSHA has moved away from its regulatory role in workplace safety. Since George W. Bush became president, OSHA has issued the fewest significant standards in its history, public health experts say. It has imposed only one major safety rule. The only significant health standard it issued was ordered by a federal court. The agency has killed dozens of existing and proposed regulations and delayed adopting others.. Instead of regulations, companies are to use a "voluntary compliance strategy" that lacks any sort of enforcement power, according to critics.
Looks like you haven't made a choice yet.


New Jersey Appellate Division Outlines Rules for Imputing Income
In a recent case discussing a recalculation of child support, the Appellate Division of New Jersey reversed a decision to increase child support where a non-paying and unemployed spouse was credited with too low of an earning capacity, and her fiancé’s income was not factored into the calculation.
In
Marino v. Marino, the couple in question had married in 1996 and divorced in 2009, having had one child who is now 17. The mother held primary custody under their divorce settlement agreement, and the father made weekly child support payments of $100. In 2010, the mother requested that the court permit her to relocate to Delaware, citing a job offer that came with a higher salary than that of her job in New Jersey, and the fact that her fiancé lived there. The court granted the motion. As a result of the change in circumstances, the court ordered in September of 2011 that both parents submit financial information to enable a recalculation of child support, which was to include financial information on the mother’s current fiancé, as the couple had had a child together after the end of her first marriage. The court noted that any change to child support would be retroactive to June of 2011.
For two years, the mother failed to submit financial information, until the father sought the court’s help in compelling her to obey the 2011 order. When she did, the court discovered that the mother had not worked consistently since 2010, with the bulk of her earnings between 2010 and 2014 coming from unemployment. The last year that the mother had earned wages was 2012, when she earned $2655 in wages and $6681 in unemployment, totaling $9336 in total income. The mother did not disclose her fiancé’s income, stating she believed that it was confidential under New Jersey Court Rules. As a result of this information, the court imputed $9,336 in annual income to the mother, down from the $43,992 to which it had previously deemed her capable of earning, and raised the father’s weekly child support obligation to $134.
The father appealed the court’s decision, arguing that the mother should have been found capable of earning at least $43,992, which she made at the time of the couple’s divorce. The father also noted that $9,336 fell below the minimum wage, and that the mother had offered no explanation as to her low earnings. The father further argued that he was entitled to a statement of the fiancé’s income, which should have served to reduce the father’s payment obligation.
In siding with the father, the Appellate Division explained that imputing income is discretionary and imprecise, requiring a court to “realistically appraise capacity to earn and job availability.” When a parent is underemployed or unemployed without a good reason, the court should impute an income based on 1) the parent’s work and earning history, any educational qualifications and special skills the parent holds, and the region’s job prospects for such a candidate; 2) the parent’s most recent wages earned; or 3) full-time work for the minimum wage of New Jersey, which is currently $8.25/hour.
The Appellate Division determined that the trial court was correct to have imputed the mother with income, as she had not offered a good reason for being unemployed, but that it had not properly followed the principles governing imputing income when it did so. The Appellate Division also found that the court had erred in failing to require that the mother disclose her fiancé’s income, and ordered that the trial court reconsider its decision, including both a properly-calculated imputed income, and using the fiancé’s income to appropriately reduce the father’s obligation.
If you are in need of legal assistance with a custody or child support matter in New Jersey, contact the skilled and experienced Union family law attorney John B. D’Alessandro for a consultation on your case, at 908-964-0102.


CMS will issue a national provider Comparative Billing Report (CBR) on Physical Therapy in November 2015. The CBR, produced by CMS contractor eGlobalTech, will focus on providers with a specialty of physical therapy and will contain data-driven tables with an explanation of findings that compare these providers’ billing and payment patterns to those of their peers in their state and across the nation. The goal of these reports is to offer a tool that helps providers better understand applicable Medicare billing rules. These reports are only accessible to the providers who receive them; they are not publicly available. Providers are advised to update their fax numbers in the Medicare Provider Enrollment, Chain, and Ownership System (PECOS) because faxing is the default method for disseminating CBRs. Providers should contact the CBR Support Help Desk at 800-771-4430 or [email protected] if they prefer to receive CBRs through the U.S. Postal Service. For more information, contact the CBR Support Help Desk, or visit the CBR website.


Learning & Teaching Podcast Now Available - Episode 027: Creative Practice
What the University Requires: Feedback and provisional marks must be returned to students within 20 working days from the end of the exam period For Semester 2 exams, feedback can be provided either within the 20-working-day deadline or at the start of the next term/semester Whole-class feedback must be issued to students within these deadlines, and students must be informed that they have the option to request individual feedback Units are not required to return copies of scripts to students or allow students to see scripts, although they may choose to do so. Students have a legal right to request access to the breakdown of marks and markers’ comments
The Newcastle University Policy on Feedback of Assessed Work provides more detail on the requirements of marking.
Exam Feedback and Feed Forward
Feedback should ‘feed forward’ and aim to help students improve their performance in future assessments. This can be built into your teaching through a range of activities:
Exam feedback provided to one module cohort can be used to structure revision sessions for students in the same module the following year In tutorials, you can ask students to respond to previous exam feedback and brainstorm the relevant marking criteria Students could practice marking samples of work from the previous year's cohort Individual feedback on exams
Academic units are required to provide individual feedback on request. They may choose to provide individual feedback on all exams or on specific exams for which students may require extra or more personalised guidance.
Methods of providing individual exam feedback Feedback Requests- In the School of Mathematics and Statistics students use a feedback request form. Asking students to explain why they wish to receive individual feedback can help staff to tailor the feedback appropriately. Feedback Afternoon- The School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics host a feedback afternoon each semester. Marked exam scripts are available for students to consult with the module leaders on a one-on-one drop in basis. Individual Recording- ReCap allows you to talk a student through their exam as you would in person. Recordings can be quicker than typing feedback and students can listen to them again. Feedback can be made over several days and then sent individually to students at the same time to ensure parity. Individual Exam Scripts- Copies of exam scripts and marking sheets with written feedback can be returned to students. These can be posted to students over the summer for semester 2 exams. NU Reflect- You can view marks with tutees in NU Reflect and encourage them to reflect on their assessments and ways to improve. Your feedback notes on assessments can be uploaded into ePortfolio and shared with students individually. Students can make and share notes with their tutor before a tutorial/feedback session and further notes afterwards detailing their next steps. Online Exams- Canvas quizzes allow you to write feedback for questions prior to the exam being taken. This is then automatically generated if the question is answered incorrectly. Whole-Class Feedback
Whole-class exam feedback is intended to guide students in measuring their performance against the standards of the exam marking criteria and in assessing how they met the intended learning outcomes.
At minimum, whole-class feedback should explain the expectations for a basic (pass-level) answer versus higher-scoring answers and outline common student mistakes. It is often most useful for students to address individual questions, although this may not be possible for some exam formats.
Methods of providing whole-class feedback Feedback documents- Marine Science and Technology use an exam feedback pro forma. This gives detailed feedback on individual questions providing students with a context for understanding their own performance. This is uploaded to a VLE or circulated via email. In-class feedback -The School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences have made use of time-tabled sessions to provide whole-class feedback. As the powerpoint slides in this example from a second-year module shows this enables them to give key points on each question which can be discussed in the session. Feedback recording- Generic feedback could be provided through a PCap recording, made at your desk, detailing key points for the whole class. This recording could be uploaded to the VLE or Blackboard or distributed by email.


In a meeting with ministers and officials of concerned ministries regarding supply of construction materials on Thursday, Oli directed Ministry of Environment to amend a schedule of Environment Rules 2054, allowing contractors to extract construction materials on the basis of Initial Environment Examination (IEE) only.
Multiple sources confirmed to Republica that the relaxation aims to eliminate the time-taking EIA process that takes up to two years. However, Minister for Environment Biswendra Paswan and other officials of the ministry were not available for comment.
If the amendment is made, concerned ministries themselves can approve IEE. They no longer need to wait for endorsement of detailed reports on environmental and social impacts by the Ministry of Environment.
Though officials say that the relaxation is being made to address acute shortage of construction materials for reconstruction works and other development projects, it is expected to draw criticisms from environmentalist.
“The decision aims to expedite development works and spend allocated budget,” an official of Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development.
Fed up by sluggish developmental works and delay in getting approval for EIA, the government has also decided to the minimum time taken for EIA approval to 40 days from 126 days. It is likely to be published in Nepal Gazette shortly.
A study report prepared by Ministry of Industry has identified 92 quarries nationwide. However, nothing has been done to prepare the quarries for systematic extraction.


17 July 2019
The International Association of Horticultural Producers (AIPH), organiser of the annual International Green City Conference, have announced that this year’s event, set to take place on 11 th September 2019 in Beijing, is titled ‘Urban Greening for Clean and Healthy Cities’.
The AIPH International Green City Conference will be held as the first-day event of the World Ornamental Horticulture Summit taking place in the Yanqing District of Beijing from 11
Keynote speaker and distinguished professor of Beijing Forestry University, Xinxiao Yu, will present findings from his extensive research which evidence the vital role of plants in the function of reducing air pollution. Revealed by his most recent major scientific research projects, Professor Xinxiao Yu will also offer a detailed study of the forest control function of PM2.5 and other particles.
Ms Chen Guifen, Deputy Mayor of Yanqing District Government, also joins the speaker line-up. Ms Chen will discuss her key role in realising ecological advancement through a range of strategies such as creating a National Forest City and promoting high-quality green development.
Referencing AIPH Green City Guidelines, AIPH’s Technical Advisor and conference speaker, Dr Audrey Gerber will demonstrate the crucial role of plants in reducing air pollution; report on best practice in urban greening policies; and present examples of the implementation of such policies. Further speakers will contribute to the topic of reducing air pollution through urban greening and provide examples of major urban greening projects.
The AIPH International Green City Conference will form part of the 71
Held annually, the conference aims to advance the ‘AIPH Green City’ – an initiative that promotes the essential role of plants in creating vibrant and healthy urban environments. The AIPH Green City Guidelines (downloadable from: http://aiph.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Green%20City%20-%20Guidelines.pdf) provide an evidence base for the numerous benefits of urban greening (including the reduction of air pollution) and for advocating the ‘AIPH Green City’.
Delegates may attend the AIPH International Green City Conference as a stand-alone event or as a registered full programme delegate of the World Ornamental Horticulture Summit or 71


Attic framing creates space between the ceiling and the roof. It should be sturdy enough to carry the weight of the framing and roof as well as snow and ice in colder climates.
Attic inspections are visual. Inspectors will access the attic if possible. Most attics are unfinished and outside the living space of the home. Inspectors will locate and access if the attic has adequate clearance and is unobstructed. Some attics are too narrow to enter or are not present due to cathedral ceilings.
The sheathing separates framing from roof shingles. It should be kept dry and free of roof leaks and its condition should be reported. Attics are subject to extreme temperature changes due to direct exposure to the sun on the roof in summer and the lack of a heat source on winter days. Therefore, adequate attic insulation is necessary for energy efficiency. Attics must be ventilated properly to eliminate cold weather moisture buildup and subsequent condensation. Additionally, ventilation is necessary to prevent excessive heat and subsequent overworking of the A/C system during warm weather. Plumbing vents, chimneys, and flues should terminate above the roofline and be free of leaks around flashed areas. Attic wiring is a part of the branch circuit wiring for the living space. Knob and tube wiring should not be covered with insulation. Wiring should not be covered with insulation. Wiring should not have splices or have open junction boxes.


Allostatic load and mental health during COVID-19: The moderating role of neuroticism
journal contributionposted on 10.01.2022, 12:00 authored by Stephen Gallagher, Rachel C. Sumner, Ann-Marie Creaven, Páraic S. O’Súilleabháin, Siobhán Howard
Background During the COVID-19 pandemic increased risk of poor mental health has been evident across different cultures and contexts. This study aims to examine whether allostatic load (AL) prior to the pandemic was predictive of poor mental health during the pandemic, and if any associations were moderated by neuroticism. Methods Data were extracted from Waves 2 (2011, allostatic load), 3 (2012, neuroticism), and the COVID-19 study (April 2020) of the Understanding Society database in the UK; data were available for 956 participants. Results Mental health increased from 2012- to during the pandemic. Neuroticism and AL were positively associated with poorer mental health during COVID-19, such that those who had scored higher on neuroticism and had higher AL prior to the pandemic reported poorer mental health during the pandemic. Neuroticism was also a significant moderator; the effect of AL on mental health during the pandemic was exacerbated in those with high and moderate levels of neuroticism but not lower. Moreover, this was driven by the immune-related indices of AL. This withstood adjustment for age, gender, employment status and prior mental health. These findings are discussed in relation to the pathophysiological mechanisms of mental health.
History Published inBrain, Behavior, & Immunity - Health PublisherElsevier Acceptance Date28/07/2021 Publication Date30/07/2021 VersionVoR (Version of Record) CitationGallagher, S., Sumner, R., Creaven, A.M., O’Súilleabháin, P.S. and Howard, S. (2021) 'Allostatic load and mental health during COVID-19: The moderating role of neuroticism', Brain, Behavior, & Immunity-Health, 16, p.100311. DOI: 10.1016/j.bbih.2021.100311 Electronic ISSN2666-3546 Cardiff Met AffiliationCardiff School of Sport and Health Sciences Cardiff Met AuthorsRachel C. Sumner Cardiff Met Research Centre/Group Occupational and Environmental Public Health


The grey area of government: Ambiguity, inconsistency and opacity in the management of forced migration and borders
Yes (verified by ORBilu)
International
0962-6298
1873-5096
United Kingdom
[en] Refugee status determination ; Asylum appeals ; Common European Asylum System ; Legal geographies ; Commonality
[en] The Common European Asylum System aims to establish common standards for refugee status determination among EU Member States. Combining insights from legal and political geography we bring the depth and scale of this challenge into sharp relief. Drawing on interviews and a detailed ethnography of asylum adjudication involving over 850 in-person asylum appeal observations, we point towards practical differences in the spatio-temporality, materiality and logistics of asylum appeal processes as they are operationalised in seven European countries. Our analysis achieves three things. Firstly, we identify a key zone of differences at the level of concrete, everyday implementation that has largely escaped academic attention, which allows us to critically assess the notion of harmonisation of asylum policies in new ways. Secondly, drawing on legal- and political-geographical concepts, we offer a way to conceptualise this zone by paying attention to the spatio-temporality, materiality and logistics it involves. Thirdly, we offer critical legal logistics as a new direction for scholarship in legal geography and beyond that promises to prise open the previously obscured mechanics of contemporary legal systems.
European Research Council - grant number StG-2015_677917 ; Economic and Social Research Council - grant number ES/J023426/1
Researchers ; Professionals ; Students ; General public


Aiming to unravel interspecific differences in olfactory preferences, we performed comparative studies of odor valence in flies, mice, and humans. Our analysis suggests a model where flies and mice share similar olfactory preferences, but neither species share odor preferences with humans. This model contrasts with a previous study by Mandairon et al., which suggested that the olfactory preferences of mice and humans are similar. A probabilistic examination revealed that underpowered studies can result in spurious significant correlations, which can account for the differences between both studies. Future analyses aimed at dissecting the olfactory preferences across species need to test large numbers of odorants to stress-test the model proposed here and identify robust associations.


In most cases, or unless specifically required by the funding agency, there is no reason to disclose participation of foreign students or postdocs on sponsored research, particularly if all work will be performed in the United States. However, there may be cases where working with a student or postdoc might be considered a “foreign component” if that student or postdoc is performing effort in a foreign country. NIH defines a foreign component as “any significant scientific element or segment of a project outside of the United States, either by the recipient or by a researcher employed by a foreign organization, whether or not grant funds are expended.” Another consideration would include disclosure of such scenarios as a foreign student, postdoc, or visiting scholar participating in the project even if they are not receiving financial support and/or tuition reimbursement from the project, particularly if the collaboration will lead to a foreign participant appearing as a co-author on a publication that arises from or references U.S. government funding for the underlying research. The NIH has indicated that, if a post-doc has returned to his/her home country and is working remotely due to COVID-19, this scenario does
not represent a “significant scientific element” that would required disclosure as a foreign component.
The University is using recommendations in the Dec. 2018 report issued by the NIH Working Group for Foreign Influences on Research Integrity to help inform its decision-making in this arena. Among the suggestions made by the working group to grantee institutions are (1) to update policies and forms to make requirements more explicit, and (2) to clarify when nondisclosure may constitute research misconduct. This webpage was created, in part, to implement those suggestions.
Yes. Prior to award, OSPA may be able help correct proposals where disclosures have been omitted or contain inaccurate information. Once an award has been made, the NSF in particular has revised award terms that require us to report previously undisclosed current support or in-kind contribution(s) within 30 days of identifying the oversight. Please contact OSPA at muresearchospa@missouri.edufor assistance with correcting applications.


Abstract
In this paper, we explore the connections between intepretivism's core and its peripheries in both geographical and epistemological terms, by tracing the relationship between interpretivism and Australian political scholarship. In this task, we draw on some of the most celebrated and influential work on Australian politics-by political scientists but before them historians and anthropologists-to show how the approach typically undertaken by these researchers echoes key tenets of interpretivism, especially through an interest in subjective beliefs and experiences, a desire to uncover and bring to life richly contextualised detail, and a commitment to the abductive linking of theory and practice. As such, we suggest that the spread of this counter identity to interpretive researchers in Australia risks manufacturing a sense of methodological antipathy, marginalising the work of interpretivists from mainstream political scholarship.


WASHINGTON — Today, Congress passed a temporary appropriations bill to fund the federal government through mid-December, including $1.8 billion for the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) in the Department of Health and Human Services. Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) calls on ORR to allocate the funding to critical operations and services for unaccompanied children and refugees, including support for children’s legal representation.
“Children without a lawyer stand almost no chance of receiving due process in the U.S. immigration system,” said
Wendy Young, President of Kids in Need of Defense. “This vital funding for ORR demonstrates Congress’s continuing commitment to programs that support and protect unaccompanied children and refugees seeking safety in the United States. ORR now has the means to expand legal representation of unaccompanied children, an action that will also strengthen the efficiency of the nation’s overburdened immigration courts.”
Even before the appropriations bill passed, the Biden Administration affirmed that it “recognizes the value of providing direct legal representation for [unaccompanied children], as these children represent a particularly vulnerable population that needs dedicated support to navigate the complex immigration court system.”
KIND is the leading provider of counsel to unaccompanied children in the United States and advocates for their protection not only in the United States, but also in Central America, Mexico, and Europe, as these children travel in search of safety.
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Media Contact:
Megan McKenna, mmckenna@supportkind.org, 202-631-9990
Meredith MacKenzie de Silva, mmdesilva@westenstrategy.com, (202) 412-4270


The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has updated its
COVID-19 Guidance for Operating Early Care and Education/Child Care Programs. It emphasizes the importance of universal masking for everyone ages 2 and older, regardless of vaccination status. The updates also provide more information on screening testing and guidance for fully vaccinated staff. Review strategies for early care and education (ECE) programs to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and maintain safer operations. This guidance will be helpful for all ECE settings, including child care, home-based, family child care, Head Start, and other pre-kindergarten programs.
While fewer children have been sick with COVID-19 compared with adults during the pandemic, children can be infected with the virus, get sick, and spread the virus to others. CDC’s
science brief on transmission in schools includes scientific evidence about the spread of the virus among children and in school and ECE settings.
Head Start and other ECE programs can promote vaccinations among staff and families, including pregnant people, by providing information about COVID-19 vaccination, encouraging vaccine trust and confidence, and establishing supportive policies and practices. We encourage you to widely share the updated guidance with your partners and networks and on your organization’s social media pages.
Access the Resource
Select the link to view the updated guidance:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/child-care-guidance.html Related Resources
Explore related resources on the Early Childhood Learning and Knowledge Center (ECLKC) to learn more.


Role of the Learned Helplessness in Diminishing the Precision of Jump Shooting for Young Basketball Players Abstract
This study aims to (1) identify the level of learned helplessness among young basketball players, and (2) identify the relationship, contribution, and influence of learned helplessness on precision of jump shooting for them. The researcher hypothesized that there is a significant correlation with the learned helplessness that slopes down, contributes, and adversely influences the precision of jump shooting among young basketball players. A descriptive correlational design was used to guide this study. The study includes a purposive sample of 62 young basketball players who continue their trainings to participate in the 2020-2021 sport season. The study sample represents 86.111% of the original population. The Learned Helplessness Scale (Seligman) was used. After verifying its scientific foundations and test the precision of the jump shooting from the front to the left of the free throw line, then moving semi-circularly to the middle and right, and then applied the two measuring tools to this sample.HTML PDF
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Transit reimbursement is often referred to as a “commuter benefit.”
Commuter benefits are a way to save money on eligible transit and parking expenses for an employee’s commute to and from work. Eligible commuting expenses are deducted from employee payroll on a pre-tax basis.
These tax-free deductions mean more money in the employee’s pocket. Eligible transit expenses may include metro and transit passes, token fare cards, vouchers or similar items to cover the cost of transportation by bus, train, subway, ferry or van-pool. Eligible parking expenses may include parking at or near an employee worksite where an employee commutes to work either by mass transit, qualifying commercial or noncommercial highway vehicle or car pool. Vendor parking can include lots and garages.


We perform a theoretical investigation of the electronic structure and optical properties of atomic nanowire and nanorod dimers using DFT and TDDFT. In both systems at separation distances larger than 0.75 nm, optical spectra show a single feature that resembles the bonding dipole plasmon (BDP) mode. A configuration interaction (CI) analysis shows that the BDP mode arises from constructive coupling of transitions, whereas the destructive coupling does not produce significant oscillator strength for such separation distances. At shorter separation distances, both constructive and destructive coupling produce oscillator strength due to wave-function overlap, which results in multiple features in the calculated spectra. Our analysis shows that a charge-transfer plasmon (CTP) mode arises from destructive coupling of transitions, whereas the BDP results from constructive coupling of the same transitions at shorter separation distances. Furthermore, the coupling elements between these transitions are shown to depend heavily on the amount of exact Hartree-Fock exchange (HFX) in the functional, which affects the splitting of CTP and BDP modes. With 50% HFX or more, the CTP and BDP modes mainly merge into a single feature in the spectra. These findings suggest that the effects of exact exchange must be assessed during the prediction of CTP modes in plasmonic systems.


Originally featured in Points West magazine in Summer 2014
Few inventions more profoundly altered the appearance of the American landscape—and the contours of western history—than barbed wire. In 1874, Joseph F. Glidden of Illinois received a patent on barbed-wire fencing. Many others claimed to have invented it, however, and the legal thickets over their claims were as tangled, pointed, and nasty as the wire itself. Yet little dispute surrounds its impact. From less than five tons in 1874, its production soared to nearly a hundred million pounds annually six years later.
Though used throughout the United States, most barbed wire was sold to western farmers eager to keep free-roaming cattle off their lands. Fierce and often bloody “wars” between farmers and “fence-cutters” ensued in Wyoming, Texas, and other parts of the West.
By the early 1890s, however, nearly all privately-owned land in the West had been fenced with barbed wire, and the halcyon days of the open range were all but ended. Illustrative of the diverse variety of designs, the examples shown here are part of a larger collection of samples assembled by noted western artist and illustrator Nick Eggenhofer. He presented them to the Buffalo Bill Museum.
Barbed wire samples, ca. 1880 – 1920. Part of a collection of some sixty pieces. Gift of Nick Eggenhofer. 1.69.467.1
Post 151


ODTs are an innovative way and a powerful tool for ensuring the product life cycle management. Moreover, since ODTs disintegrate quickly in the mouth, the tablets are patient friendly, being far more convenient than the traditional “tablet and a glass of water”. Thus ODTs are interesting to achieve patient compliance, particularly suitable for paediatric, geriatric and psychiatric patients.


S. E. Jerng and B. M. Gallant
iScience 2022, 25, 7, 104558 [publisher link] Abstract
CO
2 capture and its electrochemical conversion have historically developed as two distinct technologies and scientific fields. Each process possesses unique energy penalties, inefficiencies, and costs, which accrue along the mitigation pathway from emissions to product. Recently, the concept of integrating CO 2 capture and electrochemical conversion, or “electrochemically reactive capture,” has aroused attention following early laboratory-scale proofs-of-concept. However, the integration of the two processes introduces new complexities at a basic science and engineering level, many of which have yet to be clearly defined. The key parameters to guide reaction, electrolyte, electrode, and system design would, therefore, benefit from delineation. To begin this effort, this perspective outlines several crucial physicochemical and electrochemical considerations, where we argue that the absence of basic knowledge leaves the field of designing metaphorically in the dark. The considerations make clear that there is ample need for fundamental science that can better inform design, following which the potential impacts of integration can be rigorously assessed beyond what is possible at present.


Tips for Educators Be Aware of Bias
The first step to creating a safe and nurturing environment for Indigenous children, families and communities is being aware of personal bias and how one’s perception of others is shaped by personal worldview and environmental surroundings. Awareness of explicit and implicit bias create an opportunity for self-growth and reflection. A professional might ask:
What do I feel is valuable to teach to children? What experiences have led me to believe that these teachings are important? How do these values, beliefs and experiences influence my assumptions, expectations and interpretations of children? Shift the Paradigm of the Educational System
Institutions such as the child welfare system, judicial system and educational system are built on frameworks influenced by historical, social and economic interests. As professionals, it is important to research and be mindful of these influences, as well as how these interests continue to resonate in the genetic pool of institutions. A professional might ask:
How do I benefit from the current institutional framework? Am I aware of my position of power within the system? Do I take extra steps to create safe spaces for my students? Seek Testimonial Justice
Norton, a California Indigenous historian, states that “in the telling and in the listening, humanity meets.” This concept of bringing “meaning to the engagement between the storyteller and listener” is critical in shifting the paradigm and initiating steps toward healing. There is a need to solicit, create space and actively listen to Indigenous narratives and testimonials. A professional might ask:
Who writes the stories? Who benefits from the stories? Who is missing from the stories?


In his years before becoming a co-founder of Finantier, Diego Rojas served as CTO for a few startups in Southeast Asia. During these stints, he noticed that better infrastructure was necessary to procure financial and non-financial data from consumers and businesses. This data could then be processed to generate profiles, giving these customers access to a wider range of financial services provided by formal financial institutions. This inspired Rojas to establish Finantier alongside Keng Low, Edwin Kusuma, and Achmad Nazmy.
Founded in 2020, the Indonesia-based startup seeks to make financial services, such as applying for loans and performing digital transactions, accessible to a wider range of people. To do so, Finantier’s team has created a platform that collects user data from third-party businesses, such as Gojek, for convenient access and assessment by financial institutions.
The story of unbanked individuals failing to, say, qualify for loans from banks is common. According to a 2017 report published by the International Monetary Fund and Asian Development Bank, Indonesia’s loan disbursement to GDP was at a suboptimal 17%, which signifies underutilized financing capacity. Within the same year, 36% of the population borrowed money via informal means, such as through family members or loan sharks.
Finantier seeks to change that. Its platform compiles a user’s data from sources like ride-hailing applications, and generates a profile that can be referenced by financial institutions. This gives banks a way to evaluate prospective customers who were previously unable to be part of the conventional financial system.
The company operates based on a simple belief: the more data, the better. With that said, Finantier reinforces data privacy and user consent management to ensure information about its customers is secure. Consumers are able to restrict access and retract consent to their data, and globally recognized security practices such as the Transport Layer Security cryptographic protocol for network communications have been implemented to prevent data breaches.
Finantier’s business model is part of the practice of open finance, where third-party businesses monetize their data sets in a compliant and transparent manner.
At the moment, the bulk of Finantier’s client network is in Indonesia, where close to 70% of the population remains unbanked and is mostly reliant on cash. Earlier in the year, Finantier expanded to the Philippines, where roughly the same proportion of its population operates outside the conventional financial system.
Finantier was among the finalists of the Alibaba Cloud x KrASIA Global Startup Accelerator Philippines Demo Day that was held on February 8.


Flanking traditional metrics such as throughput and reliability, age of information (AoI) is emerging as a fundamental tool to capture the performance of IoT systems. In this context, we focus on a setup in which a large number of nodes attempt delivery of time-stamped updates to a common destination over a shared channel, and investigate the ability of different grant-free access strategies to maintain fresh information at the receiver. Specifically, we derive for the first time an exact closed-form expression of the average AoI achieved by irregular repetition slotted ALOHA (IRSA), and compare its performance to that of a slotted ALOHA approach. Our analysis reveals the potential of modern random access schemes, and pinpoints some fundamental trade-offs, providing useful hints for proper system design.


The workplace is a justifiable place to meet the right match; however, dating a co-worker can be deemed unprofessional in some settings.
Walmart aims to avoid disruption between team members to maintain effective customer service throughout the team. So this may leave you wondering, what is the dating policy at Walmart? Here is what I have found!
Walmart Dating Policy In [currentyear] Walmart’s dating policy allows associates to date others who have the same position, e.g., cashier, stocker, manager. However, Walmart does not allow the dating of associates who have influence over their position. Therefore Walmart store associates cannot date managers or other superiors as this can cause potential favoritism.
Keep reading if you’d like to know whether Walmart associates can freely date customers or staff members from an alternative store!
What Does Walmart Deem Dating?
Dating at Walmart is recognized as a romantic partner by Walmart’s conflict of interest guidelines.
This includes spouses (husbands and wives), partnerships, and someone with whom you have a sexual relationship.
Can Romantic Partners Work Together At Walmart?
No, you cannot have romantic relations with another Walmart associate that works in your chain of command.
Additionally, Walmart disallows anyone to date another member who has influence over the associate’s conditions of employment or performance rating.
On the occasion that your spouse or other romantic relation is moved to your physical area of work within the company, you should disclose the relationship to your manager, People Lead, or Ethics and Compliance immediately.
Can Walmart Fire You For Dating A CoWorker?
Yes, you could be fired for dating a coworker at Walmart for breaching the dating policy as outlined under the conflict of interest guidelines.
Dating in the workplace is negatively viewed as the relationship could compromise the integrity of the store.
Before termination, you may receive a series of warnings or come to an agreement with your superior.
However, persistent violation of the policy typically results in dismissal. California’s state law disallows companies, including Walmart, from firing employees due to an internal relationship.
What Happens If A Walmart Manager Dates An Employee?
If a Walmart manager dates someones that works below them in the command chain, then both the manager and the other associate are at risk of both getting fired.
This is mainly due to the risk of managers displaying favoritism and ultimately sabotaging the store’s equilibrium.
Can You Date Someone From Another Walmart Store?
In line with the dating policy, Walmart discourages employees from dating one another.
However, two associates that work at separate branches are not inflicting on each other’s work and therefore shouldn’t feel the repercussions of conflict of interest.
Both parties should consider informing their store manager or another superior of the relationship.
Are Supplier Relations Allowed At Walmart?
Store associates may embark on a relationship with a Walmart supplier if they do not influence each other’s work.
Speak to your manager, People Lead, or Ethics and Compliance team to receive advice on how to manage the relationship if your work jeopardizes your partner’s.
Can Walmart Associates Date Customers?
Yes, Walmart associates can date customers provided the relationship does not interfere with their work.
Additionally, associates must prioritize professionalism during their shift and therefore cannot carry out romantic gestures or pursue a customer during work hours or on the store premises.
What Is The Fraternization Policy?
The fraternization policy, commonly known as the dating policy, is enforced in most workplaces, including Walmart.
The policy ensures coworkers that are romantically or platonically involved with each other outside of work remain professional on shift.
Singing a contract of employment binds you to these rules. You may experience disciplinary actions or even termination if you decide to breach these terms. California’s state law is an exception to this rule.
Conclusion: Walmart Dating Policy
Walmart’s dating policy is determined in line with the conflict of interest guidelines. Associates cannot date another member in their area of work or a supplier manager (or other superior) who influences their work.
Walmart has the right to discipline or dismiss (unless based in California) anyone who violates these terms. Associates from entirely different stores may be romantically involved unless a manager.


For the second year in a row, the Office of Research joined WSU Spokane in hosting a spring wellness challenge aimed to promote and encourage a healthy and active lifestyle through daily workouts, healthy nutrition, proper sleeping habits, increased water intake, a positive mindset, and individual self-care.
The Healthy Lifestyle BINGO challenge took place during the month of May. Participants received a BINGO card that included tasks ranging from workouts to meal prep and drinking enough water, to acts of self-care.
Participants were encouraged to complete one task per day. When participants reached a BINGO, they were asked to submit their card for a chance to win a prize. Each BINGO earned the participant one entry into the drawing. Participants with a blackout, a card with every task completed, were entered into a special drawing. A total of 249 BINGOs were submitted, along with 12 blackouts.
The winners of the BINGO drawing were Nathan Palmer, project manager in the Social and Economic Sciences Research Center, Eric Smith, director of Facilities and Capital Projects at WSU Spokane, Hope Tinney, public relations coordinator in the Washington Small Business Development Center, and Melissa Carolus, student financial aid manager at WSU Spokane. The winners of the blackout drawing were Kelly Trowbridge, curriculum specialist in the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine, and Darren Bystrom, information systems and technologies assistant director in the Office of Research.
The Office of Research and WSU Spokane have partnered together to host healthy lifestyle challenges over the past two years. The Healthy Living Challenge (HLC) Committee, made up of team members from the Office of Research and the Spokane Wellness Collaborative, organize several wellness challenges throughout the year. The next challenge presented by the HLC Committee will be held in September.
The BINGO challenge is sponsored by the Office of Research, the Spokane Health Sciences Campus, including the Elson s. Floyd College of Medicine, the College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, and the College of Nursing.


Keywords: Emergency Legislation; Humanitarian Measures; Migration Policies; Devices to Govern; Government Accountability.
Since 2011, Italy's strategy to support migrants has mainly been centred on emergency measures, as evidenced by projects such as «Emergency North Africa» and «Mare Nostrum». It did not take long to acknowledge the faults of such emergency approach, namely the allocation of financial resources to subjects that did not possess the required expertise and competencies; the failure to monitor and account for expenses and lack of integration with the existing local services. This resulted in the creation of a rescuing system that worked alongside the current one provided by Sprar (Refugees and Asylum Seekers System, state funded and governed at a national and European level). Is it possible to identify aspects of the typical Italian migration policies in these government decisions? This article seeks to analyse the limitations imposed by European and national regulations on support projects; the history of support strategies aimed at foreign nationals living in Italy; the role of the no profit sector within the public administration and the consequences of the economical and competency-related dependency arisen between the two sectors.


This webinar recording provides a comprehensive look into impacts COVID-19 is having on the surety industry, and considerations for the surety professional. COVID-19 has changed the way we interact, conduct business, and evaluate risk. Our panel of experts from Langley LLP; Manier & Herod; Watt, Tieder, Hoffar & Fitzgerald LLP.; and The Vertex Companies, Inc. will be leading attendees through a series of topics designed to help surety professionals navigate these unprecedented times. With subjects spanning Principal health checks, Force Majeure, relevant provisions and excusable delays in Federal contracts, recommended practices for securing jobsites and project continuity, schedule impacts, potential surety exposure, and potential financial defaults and bankruptcy considerations, attendees will gain valuable insight and expertise.
Recorded Webinar COVID-19: Considerations for Surety Professionals Stay in Touch
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‘Rate hikes are positive only if they are adequate for the underlying risk’.
The market is clearly undergoing a period of significant hardening with rate increases expected to continue upwards into 2021 as a result of the immediate and longer-term impacts of COVID-19, coupled with successive years of increased loss severity and frequency, and prior-year loss performance across multiple lines.
All press enquiries should be directed to: [email protected]


If you face charges following an altercation, it is pivotal to go over the details surrounding the incident and understand your options. Moreover, you should familiarize yourself with relevant laws as well as the potential penalties that could arise. For example, it is important to understand the difference between assault and battery.
Moreover, you should also familiarize yourself with various factors that can affect the severity of the charges you face.
A look at simple assault and simple battery charges
According to the Georgia General Assembly, simple assault involves attempting to injure another person in a violent manner or carrying out a violent act that causes another person to have reason to believe that they will suffer a violent injury. However, simple battery involves intentional physical contact with another person that is provocative in nature or physically harming another person deliberately.
Simple assault and simple battery involving pregnant women, those over the age of 65, law enforcement officials and family members can lead to more serious charges.
Dealing with simple assault or simple battery charges
If you face charges as a result of simple assault or simple battery, you could face time behind bars and financial penalties. These charges could disrupt your life in many different ways, destroying your reputation and resulting in career challenges. In some instances, people face these allegations even though they acted in self-defense, and some people face assault or battery charges even though they never threatened or hurt the other party.
It is crucial to thoroughly pore over the ins and outs of your assault or battery case and safeguard your future.


Georgetown Estate Planning Attorney Gives Your Intentions Legal Force Central Kentucky firm assists with testamentary documents and probate
Proper estate planning benefits both you and the people you love. You gain the security of knowing that that the assets you worked to accumulate over a lifetime will be distributed based on your wishes rather than Kentucky intestacy laws. At the same time, creating a sound estate plan will help your beneficiaries secure ownership of investments, liquid assets and tangible items promptly and efficiently. At Larmour Law Offices, PSC in Georgetown, we are committed to finding the right solutions for clients throughout Central Kentucky. Whether you need to draft a will, create a power of attorney document or provide instructions regarding the guardianship of your children or incapacitated adults, our firm will give you the legal support you deserve.
Knowledgeable attorney creates wills, power of attorneys, and advance directives
Even if the value of your estate falls below the federal tax threshold, failing to plan could cost family members a significant amount of money. Certain beneficiaries are required to pay inheritance tax under Kentucky law and confusion over a decedent’s intentions could lead to long, expensive disputes over probate. You can rely on Attorney Ashley Larmour regarding a wide array of estate concerns, including:
Wills— Our firm prepares clear, enforceable wills that distribute property effectively and serve as a fitting legacy for our clients. Even if you already have a will in place, you might benefit from a review of the document to determine if any updates or revisions should be made. Probate matters— When it comes to probate matters, we help executors, administrators and beneficiaries who are seeking to settle an estate in accordance with the decedent’s instructions and pertinent law. Ms. Larmour handles critical tasks efficiently and provides knowledgeable counsel on various probate options, as well as disputes that arise over the validity of a will or an estate representative’s performance. Guardianships and conservatorships— We assist adults who are caring for incapacitated adults. In the event that an adult family member is incapable of addressing their needs, our firm can advise on a guardianship that would shift legal authority over personal care to you and/or a conservatorship that empowers you to handle their financial issues. Further, we can explain how guardianship of a child interplays with custody in family court. Advance directives— A durable power of attorney designates someone to handle your affairs in the event that you cannot due to injury or illness. You can state specific preferences regarding personal matters and medical treatment and create a living will that describes whether you want life-prolonging measures if your condition is terminal.
No matter how large or small your potential estate might be, our firm will give you the personal attention and skillful legal guidance you deserve.
Contact a thorough Kentucky estate planning attorney for a consultation
Larmour Law Offices, PSC advises Kentucky clients on a full range of estate planning matters, including the creation of wills, trusts and power of attorney documents. Please call 859-813-5614 or contact us online to schedule an initial consultation at our Georgetown office.


Zero coupon bonds
These bonds can be purchased at a deep discount and redeemed at a set date at face value.
Zero coupon bonds (or STRIPS) are bonds you can purchase at a deep discount and redeem at a set date (maturity date) at face value.
These bonds compound semi-annually at the corresponding yield that you lock in at the time of purchase. Unlike other bonds, zero coupon bonds don't pay interest regularly.
Zero coupon bonds offer the following features: Price changes– The value of your bond will change daily with fluctuations in interest rates as well as company specific news. Liquidity– You can sell zero coupon bonds at their market value at any time before the maturity date. Phantom income– You must pay taxes on the "phantom income" or "accreted value" each year you own a zero coupon bond on an annual basis. Current rates
Get up-to-date information on our current bond rates, along with the latest rates on our Government Investment Certificates (GICs) and other fixed-income investments. Learn more.
These securities are derived from Government of Canada, Provincial Government, and Corporate bonds. The coupons are removed and sold as different securities. The zero coupon security carries the same backing as the original bond. Market and interest risks are greater with zero coupon securities than with the original bond.
We can help
At Edward Jones, we can help you reach your financial goals. Contact your Edward Jones financial advisor today.


BlackRock has cross-listed two China-focused ETFs – one equity, one fixed income – on SIX Swiss Exchange.
The equity ETF provides broad exposure to multiple Chinese share classes, while the fixed income fund, targets renminbi-denominated government and policy bank bonds issued in China.
The
iShares MSCI China UCITS ETF has been listed in US dollars under the ticker ICHN SW.
It is linked to the
MSCI China Index which captures large- and mid-cap representation across China H shares, B shares, Red chips, P chips, and foreign listings.
With 447 constituents, the index covers about 85% of the China equity universe.
Large-cap China A shares are currently represented at 15% of their float-adjusted market capitalization. The inclusion factor of large-cap A shares in the index is expected to increase to 20% following MSCI’s November 2019 semi-annual review, while China A mid-cap shares, including eligible ChiNext shares, will also be included at a 20% inclusion factor.
The majority of the index’s exposure is concentrated within three sectors: information technology (37.6%), financials (22.0%), and consumer discretionary (8.9%). The next largest sector exposure is real estate (5.7%). Tencent and Alibaba both hold significant weights in the index at 15.4% and 12.6%, respectively, followed by China Construction Bank (5.3%) and Baidu (3.9%).
The ETF is already listed on
Euronext Amsterdam in US dollars and Deutsche Börse’s Xetra in euros under the tickers ICHN NA and ICGA GY, respectively. It comes with an expense ratio of 0.40% and houses $12 billion in assets under management. Income is capitalised within the fund. Fixed income
The
iShares China CNY Bond UCITS ETF has been listed in US dollars under the ticker CNYB SW. It tracks the Bloomberg Barclays China Treasury + Policy Bank Index through physical replication using a stratified sampling technique.
The index reflects the performance of fixed-rate RMB-denominated treasury bonds and policy bank bonds listed on the China inter-bank bond market. Eligible securities must be rated investment grade and have a minimum of one year to maturity. The index currently contains over 300 bonds.
Nearly half (47.2%) of the index is allocated to bonds issued by the Chinese government, with the remaining weight assigned to bonds from China Development Bank, Agricultural Development Bank, and Export-Import Bank of China. These three policy banks are responsible for financing economic and trade development as well as state-invested projects.
The ETF may appeal to investors searching for increased yield without venturing into junk bond territory – the underlying index is currently yielding 3.2%. It can also serve as a portfolio diversifier with BlackRock noting that China bond yields have historically exhibited a near-zero correlation with developed countries’ government bonds.
The fund comes with moderate interest rate risk with the underlying index showing an effective duration of 5.5 years.
The ETF is also listed on
Euronext Amsterdam in US dollars and on Xetra in euros under the tickers CNYB NA and ICGB GY, respectively. The fund has an expense ratio of 0.35% and houses $100m in AUM. Income is distributed to investors on a semi-annual basis.


From the first launch to ongoing market access operational execution, IntegriChain solves some of the most complex and pressing challenges associated with drug commercialization. We deliver pharma’s only comprehensive data, consulting, and business process platform for market access departments, providing the strategy, data, applications, and infrastructure for therapy commercialization.
Solutions overview
IntegriChain delivers the pharmaceutical industry’s largest and only data and business process platform for therapy commercialization and access. Manufacturers rely on our analytics, applications, and managed services to power their operations and harness the value of their channel, patient and payer data.
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IntegriChain provides a complete set of professional services for commercialization and market access execution–from life science strategy and operational consulting to implementation, integration, migrations, and analytics.
Services overview
We help all stakeholders in the pharmaceutical industry drive access with our relentless focus on unifying all of the critical business functions for therapy commercialization and access – contracts & pricing, gross-to-net, channel, and patient services – to unlock strategic payer, provider, pharmacy and patient access insights.
Learn more about our company
Learn more about joining our growing IntegriChain team of data scientists, market access experts, analysts, and consulting professionals – our culture, our purpose, our teams in the US and Pune. Check out our careers or keep in touch for future opportunities.
Careers overview
Many pharmaceutical manufacturers struggle to evaluate and implement a series of pricing and contracting decisions leading up to their first commercial launch. IntegriChain has market-tested blueprints for commercial, government/compliance, and gross-to-net launches.
Our flexible deal analytics framework and methodology around payer pre-deal analysis can assist pharma manufacturers in evaluating pricing and contracting strategies for pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and other payers in the lead up to launch, as outlined below.
To address the challenges in pharma launch strategies, IntegriChain’s Commercial Roadmap to Launch provides a series of analytical and operational services including:
Pre-commercial pharma manufacturers need to prepare for participation in key government programs to ensure they have access to these critical channels for their upcoming product launch, and are ready to comply with all price reporting requirements.
To address these challenges, IntegriChain’s Government & Compliance Roadmap to Launch includes the following services:
Finance leaders within pre-commercial pharma manufacturers often worry about their ability to close their financial statements “Month One” and/or the first quarter after launch, due to lack of resources or time to define and build a trusted, efficient, and audit-ready gross-to-net (GTN) process.
To address these challenges, IntegriChain’s Gross-to-Net Roadmap to Launch includes the following services:
Let’s Build a Pharma Launch Plan
A top 10 pharmaceutical manufacturer was preparing to launch a complex oncology combination regimen with two novel agents but was faced with several unique commercial challenges.
Read the Case Study
Learn more about IntegriChain’s comprehensive Commercial Roadmap to Launch Program for both emerging and established companies preparing for product launch
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MOXIBUSTION
What is Moxibustion?
Moxibustion is a treatment which involves the application of heat to a specific area of the body. Moxa has been utilized by Traditional Chinese Medical (TCM) practitioners for over 10,000 years; in fact, most TCM textbooks are entitled “Acupuncture and Moxibustion”, emphasizing the importance of moxa in the acupuncture treatment. Moxibustion is often used in lieu of acupuncture, as it possesses the same ability to stimulate meridian points as acupuncture needles. Thus, for those with a fear of needles, Moxibustion is a great alternative treatment.
Can’t I just use a heating pad?
Moxa does not just warm the superficial layer of the body (like a heating pad does). Instead, moxa gradually penetrates to the deeper tissue, influencing internal organs and circulation.
Moxibustion feels extremely relaxing for patients. Patients often claim that, during the treatment, they feel heat deep inside the body, a movement of energy within them, and a feeling of calmness.
How is moxa administered?
Moxa can be administered in several different forms. Indirect moxa can be performed by moving a moxa cigar along the body part to be treated, by placing a moxa cone on a slice of ginger or on a pillow of salt, or by placing a small moxa bud on top of an acupuncture needle. Direct moxa refers to a single moxa, rolled into a cone the size of a grain of rice. The rice cone is placed on the acupuncture point, which has previously been covered with burn cream.
What are the health benefits of Moxibustion?
By increasing blood supply to a local area, moxa clears blockages within the meridians, drives cold energies out of the body, and promotes a deeper relaxation of vessels and muscles, allowing the body’s natural healing mechanisms to flourish. Studies have shown that moxa can help:
activate immune function, by increasing white blood cell count and enhancing lymphocyte activity,
increase red blood cell count,
heal wounded tissue,
revive organs that have lost their capacity to function optimally,
lower blood pressure, reduce blood viscosity, and dilate various vessels, and
detoxify the body.
Moxibustion provides effective support for:
Chronic pain
Muscle tension, injuries, and blockages
Arthritis/rheumatism of muscles and joints
Carpal tunnel, tendonitis, nerve/joint inflammation, and repetitive strain injuries
Menstrual cramps, chronic pelvic inflammation, and menopause
Sinusitis and rhinitis
Digestive issues and low metabolism
Liver/spleen/pancreatic weakness and cleansing
Fertility
Heart weakness
Fatigue
Studies have also indicated that Moxibustion can assist with breech fetuses in pregnancy. Currently, the international scientific community is studying the potential benefits of moxibustion in fighting cancer and HIV, as well as improving liver dysfunction.